Written by Sir Peter Marshall
This article was first published in Briefings for Brexit and we republish with their kind permission
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Sir Peter Marshall urges his friends and fellow citizens to support the government, and explains why.
Dear voting Friends,
Even as we breathe again after the dissolution of parliament, and feel sadness and sympathy for those worthy MPs who became so discountenanced, so discontented or so disillusioned, for one reason or another, that they either switched parties or decided to quit, we have to face in this election the reality of the damage which the last House of Commons has collectively inflicted upon us during its brief and disastrous existence.
Under the least impartial and most histrionic Speaker of modern times; aided and abetted (i) by an insufficiently critical House of Lords, and (ii) by a biased and analytically feeble Commentariat; and implicitly endorsed by the Supreme Court; our MPs, although having pledged themselves by a vast majority to respect the outcome of the 2016 Referendum, collectively proceeded in effect to stand it on its head.
In their obsession with the great problems of leaving, and with the supposed unimaginable horrors of leaving without a deal, our MPs contrived more or less to turn the question of “how we should leave” into “why should we not remain”?
The Sovereignty of Parliament was their watchword: but in reality evading responsibility for the ultimate decision was their tactic. They insisted there should be a second referendum, or a “people’s vote”, or another referendum in Scotland; anything, in fact, which would help lead to remaining in the EU. The elitist Lib Dems have gone one better. They are simply telling the 17.4 million who voted leave in 2016 to get lost.
The Remainers’ prospectus, however, is palpably false. We are not so much ledas left to believe that, if we don’t like whatever deal may be available, or if we don’t like Brexit at all, we have the right to remain in the EU on the same basis as at present.
That would prove to be a dangerous misunderstanding. All we know for certain is that, according to the European Court of Justice, we have the right to revokethe notification of our intention to withdraw. The ECJ says nothing about the rights of the other 27 Member States in relation to such revocation. This can scarcely be a matter of surprise. As they see it, we have been an existential threat, or at best a monumental nuisance.
It is also virtually unknown in this country that the ECJ rejected a bid by the European Council and the European Commission to make revocation of a notification of intent to withdraw subject to the unanimous approval of the European Council. We simply have no idea what might await us by way of conditions and complexities at the hands of the Commission and the 27 if we opted to “remain”. We can be sure, from previous harsh experience, that there would be no Prodigal Son treatment.
If anyone urges you, dear friends, to vote “remain”, ask her or him what precisely “remain” means, and do not take waffle and evasion for an answer. It means going back into the hamster’s cage.
In 1957 the last great Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee, came to speak to a meeting of diplomats from East and West in Montreux, in Switzerland. The Treaty of Rome, creating the European Economic Community (EEC), had recently been signed. He was asked whether the UK was part of Europe or not: “we’re semi-detached”, he succinctly replied. Yes, indeed. That is both the underlying explanation both of why we are so grievously divided at the moment, and a gateway to extracting ourselves from the demeaning and atypical situation into which we have allowed ourselves to sink.
On the one hand, we shall never cease to need and cherish the close economic, social, cultural and moral interests and affinities which have linked us with the Continent for centuries. We readily understand too the political, security and defence considerations which prompt the countries of the continent to embrace integration themselves in various configurations; and we are willing ourselves to participate up to a point with the resulting supranational institutional arrangements.
On the other hand, we forget at our peril the fundamental difference between the norms by which we agree to le ruled. The basis for the EU is the Napoleonic Code, whereas the British live consensually and “organically”, under and by Common Law. We expect to be able to get rid democratically of those who make our laws and tell us what to do, if we consider that we have had enough of them.
There comes therefore a point at which successive conferrals of competences to a central institution, with overriding jurisdiction over the scope and manner of their exercise, ceases be acceptable to us.
That point was reached with the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty. The demand for a referendum became irresistible. The 2016 Referendum was above all a stunning, but well-deserved, rebuke to UK plc of which the vote to leave the EU was doubtless the main, but by no means the only, feature.
In the ensuing negotiations, a dreary sequence of errors of commission and omission, of follies and of misfortunes on the UK side, and an attitude of solid unhelpfulness and deliberate flouting of the terms of Article 50(2) of the Lisbon Treaty on the part of our EU partners.
The treatment meted out to us during the negotiations would have been enough to convince anyone not dominated by the “Anglo-Brussels Orthodoxy” that there is no place for us in the EU, given what it has become. So far Remainers have blithely adopted the well-worn policy of ignoring awkward facts.
Thanks to the amendments to the Withdrawal Agreement and the changes in the Political Declaration, achieved by the Prime Minister, a semi-detached Brexit is within reach. The last House of Commons were ready to contemplate it.
It is far from perfect. But, given the complexities, perfection would have been unattainable, even under the positive-sum regime proposed in Mrs May’s letter of March 29 2017 to the President of the European Council, “triggering” the withdrawal process. In the event, it was never on the cards, because of the EU Guidelines, and UK craven acceptance of them as the sole basis for conducting the negotiations. Much ground has thus been conceded.
Yet in the perception of semi-detachment, this would be an advantage rather than a drawback. Compromise is of the essence. Informed and constructive Europhilia is unencumbered; visceral satisfaction at “taking back control” is achieved. The more the present agreement is denounced by the Brexit Party or whomsoever as BRINO (“Brexit in Name Only”), and the more it is assailed by the Remainers as leaving us insufficiently close to the EU, the surer the Prime Minister can be that he is on the right lines. His is indeed the only game in town.
All good wishes,
Peter
It is not due to the ‘complexities’ but the sheer dishonesty of our self serving MP’s who have broken our democracy.
A well known ditty?
The Song of the Brexiteers
Who do you think you’re kidding Mr Johnson,
If you say that Brexit’s done,
We are the team who will stop your little game,
We are the team who will make you think again –
‘Cause who do you think you’re kidding Mr Johnson,
When you say that Brexit’s done.
Nigel’s team are on the way to every Northen Town,
To build the votes to spike your guns,
And send you tumbling down,
So watch out Mr Johnson you have met your match with us,
If you think you’ll crush us,
You’re on a different bus,
‘Cause who do you think you’re kidding Mr Johnson,
When you say that Brexit’s done!
(With apologies and due credit to the original composers)
Such a clever chap this Sir Peter? He states “perfection would have been unattainable”.
Does he not realise that in fact ‘we the people’, unencumbered by ‘Diplomacy or Parliament’ DID IN FACT ACHIEVE PERFECTION as a result of the Referendum?
Because we, THE MAJORITY, voted to LEAVE! Not a maybe, a perhaps, a proviso, a dither or any kind of compromise – but a screamingly simple instruction to LEAVE.
One needs to ask him, WHAT does he then see as ‘perfection’ and secondly, what does he understand by LEAVE?
Of course, being a Diplomat he views a ‘the once in a lifetime vote, which the Government will honour’ and a VOTE to LEAVE as something else, something different, something puzzling to him?
Suppose as an extreme example, that HE as a Diplomat, had been instructed by his Government to present to an enemy a declaration of war – would he then expect that it would be left to him, or some other Diplomat to ignore the instruction, take it upon himself to look for the ‘complexities’ and start negotiations, without strict instructions, with ‘the enemy’? The ‘complexities’ were self-imposed by pathetic ‘leadership’. SOME LEADERSHIP!
He is surely confusing Diplomacy with ORDERS.
Everybody and his brother were screaming at Theresa – “you are in a monumental, virtually life or death poker game Missus – (WE never gave you instructions to ‘dance’ into the lion’s den, cap in hand) how many such games of life and death have YOU been involved in” ? NONE!
Those excellent strong men she had at her side, David Davis etc, were summarily dismissed with the arrogance of an Empress. The result?
Utter chaos and confusion and the utter contempt of both Leavers and Remainers. Plus of course, to the accompanying glee and incredulity of Barnier.
Sorry, Sir Peter, but you are patently a Remainer. And therefore clearly NOT able to pretend to speak for and certainly not to represent those who VOTED to leave. We The People.
With respect – Go Sir and Retire to your ‘pile’.
Sorry, misterpaul5, l you have got me wrong. Ask any of my fellew British diplomats1
I am 95 years old, and I was a navigator in the RAF 1943 -1946. The first time I got serlously involved in the EEC, de Gaulle was keeping us out with his1963 veto. I know what it is like to operate on the outside.
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We have an enormous stake in the European mainland, whether we are in the EU or out of it. The idea of a “cleam break” in a closely interdependent world is illusory.
And bringing the people of this great country together again is more important than the precse details of our deal on leaving..
Anyway, would you not agree that because of technoligical advance, artiicial nitelligence, robots, drones, climate change and the rapidity of change generally could well mean that the way we/you live and work in fifteen years’ time may make our present disagreements all but irrelevant?
Best wishes Peter Marshall
Sir Peter, thank you for your response.
However – despite your litany of ‘the modern miracles of communication’ – with which we are suffering, dare I say that a far greater threat to Europe and ourselves (and you may have read) are the monumental problems in, to mention only two, Sweden and Austria – plus the vast no-go areas in Germany.
The greatest threat to the EU, and as a result our country, is the cavalier way in which the EU are destroying the last vestiges of our Judeo/Christian history and culture by the wholesale importation of ‘Muslim/Islamic/European/Christian- declared enemies.
I have little doubt you are equally aware of the statements, new and old, of the monstrous Erdogan, – the Caliph in waiting.
We are currently being openly blackmailed by this ‘beggar’ whom we have allowed to rule us from afar in terms of immigration and also our military vulnerability for far too long.
Ultimately we will have little or no control over the decisions they (the other alien twenty-seven) make on our behalf.
If we are minnows in International trade and politics, then let us protect those last vestiges of freedom and quality of life, bequeathed to us by our courageous, but largely forgotten, forbears – who sacrificed their precious lives for our freedom – they gave their lives, not to be ruled by a motley crew of disparate Eurpean gypsies, but in the hope that our glorious ‘sceptred isle, Other Eden’ would survive to enjoy the liberty and freedom we so eagerly paid for at ‘the call’.
I hate no-one – but ‘ I was always taught to be cautious’ – I was taught to choose my ‘friends’ carefully – and not to have ‘friendships’ forced upon me.
I do not hate Muslims – I desperately fear Islam.
Any thing that I can do to assist in the survival of my country – let me do it now – for I may not pass this way again.
Good health, and Best Wishes to you
Paul F Austin
I am afraid that some of the things you listed are illusory, sir.
Take climate change for example. The pure science of observational truth has been hijacked by sectional interests who found they can get funding for some pet project if they sign up to a political decision. Follow the money.
I’m afraid that you do come across as a Remainer as most of the points you state as important are in fact economical in nature, whereas Leavers were and are driven by the simple drive to make our own decisions. The phrase A Free Country springs to mind.
You said yourself that the Lisbon Treaty was the last straw. What was it like during the war, how did the average person feel? Why didn’t most of us want to stop fighting? I am only 69, I wasn’t born yet.
Having said, I remain in admiration and thank you for your service in the RAF.
Rob Pearce – I certainly, like you, raise my hat to Sir Peter in admiration and thanks for his heroic service in WWII.
I am ONLY 83′ so in terms of Sir Peter, I am a mere ‘mushroom’. Although I did serve six years in the RAF.
Nevertheless – from the very beginning we have been conned, turned over and hung out to dry in regard to Europe.
I get a similar feeling when I see what is occurring with China.
They ‘cock a snook’ at our measley, irrelevant reductions in CO2 and the destruction of our coal-mining. They employ over a million in their coal industry and we? Around four thousand. And they obtain coal from many surrogate nations where they promote coal mining. So much for their climate change efforts.
Their’s isn’t the old ‘five-year plan’ Xi has a fifty to hundred year plan – just as was the case with the European Union.
It is surely now incumbent on any future UK Government to ‘go our own way’ in terms of our energy generation, which is essential if we are to become self-sufficient in energy supply and expand our manufacturing base.
The sheer madness of the prospect of our giving away our steel industry to the Chinese Government fir. Paltry 70 million is surely suicidal. We are doing what the USA have been doing for many a long year, exporting our manufacturing needs to our competitors – which of course Trump is now trying to reverse.
But I digress (as usual!).
The main question is, will leaving the EU be better or worse for our country in the long run?
My belief is that this IS our moment of truth.
Sure, many other factors must be addressed, but if we are to give our youth opportunities for an independent and successful future, then now is the time to start.
This coming election must not herald the end to our glorious past – we must grasp the moment – recognise that we have all that it takes within our nation to forge a successful future – and we must begin to enthuse our youth with a positivity not seen or enjoyed since the end of the last War.
There is no substitute for enthusiasm and positive thinking – IT STARTS FROM THE TOP.
Could the Lib/Dems cut the word ‘Democrats’ from their title ? ….. It is offensive to the English language and use !
further to my last post, readers being a bit incredulous at my claims might care to Google “Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution” (or indeed “Wall Sreet and the Rise of Hitler” ), both by Professor Anthony Sutton. or get back to me as per previous post
It is far from perfect indeed! It is so far from perfect that it is completely unacceptable and in no way fulfills the promise that the referendum result would be respected.
Sadly Farage seems to have been neutered or bought off.
As a former Conservative who left the Conservative Party in 1970 when Heath,, leader of the law and order party broke not only English statute but also Common law, I have been aware of the external forces which coerced him and his successors into continuing the betrayal. Originally the memory of two world wars was used to induce us to be less reisitant to the idea of the EC/EU. When that provided less than fruitful we were warned by the psyops department of the Heath government that the EU was a “bulwark against communism” . Those who know their constitution and Common Law know that the EU is communism. (as Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukosvsky confirmed) The collapse of the Berlin Wall was no accident but planned all along. in order to merge the former Soviet satellites into the system.
Behind the scenes ever since the Macmilllan government declared itself in favour of World Government (1957)(confirmed by Dr Alan Sked in Daily Telegraph Nov 2015 ) the nation state idea has been slowly compromised. Behind this smokescreen is the threat of another war if we do not oblige. Russia is being kept in the wings for that purpose.
It was James Warburg the international banker who told the US Senate in 1950. “We shall have world government whether we like it or not., The only question is whether it will be by conquest or consent”. That is why the “dictatorships” of Iraq, Libya and Syria have been attacked by European armies, acting on instructions to take over these countries.
Since the Russian Revolution was financed from America the “fight” between West and East is very real from the point of view of the foot soldiers, arms suppliers on the ground but a complete sham for those on high who want to prevent their world government programme by “peaceful means” falling apart because the pesky British, with their long tradition of liberty, want to spoil it all through Brexit. john.cruttwell@sfr.fr.
Well spoken John…….like your spirit and logic! Stay with it!
I am exhausted and totally worn down by this excuse for a Parliament. But I am completely unmoved in my resolve that what they propose is not in any shape or form Brexit. I have even had a letter from my MP after several emails and a letter which was posted setting out the clear reasons why this is unacceptable, six months ago, but all I got was that Boris was the only show in town and a vote for the Brexit party or any other party was pointless. He is definitely concerned about his slim majority. Well I have news for him, it’s not. We have to get all these people out NOW. As drastic as it may seem, perhaps this country needs a Marxist anti-Semitic leader to bankrupt the country to prove a point. I don’t care anymore.
well said Lisa. I have been a life long Tory voter but if there is not a Brexit party choice I will not be voting as Doris’s is the same as May’s capitulation and I have read both, mays twice as I could not believe it
Compromise ( Much loved by politicians ), is the last option after surrender. A final effort to save their own skins,
disgraceful self preservation abasement, pleading. and whining. Disgusting.
No voice, no vote, no veto is not semi-detachment by any stretch of the imagination.
You can see the cartoon: in one of those dungeons so beloved of the cartoonist, 27 bewhiskered and emaciated prisoners are hanging from the walls. A mop-haired bottle blond is manacled at ankle and wrist and is attached via vast ring-bolts to their wall, but, unlike them, he has a foot or so of chain. “Look! Semi-detached!”
Some people are easily satisfied.
JF
Quite.
There is Brexit, or No Brexit. This is Associate EU membership by stealth. They are keeping us in ‘a holding pattern’ until we rejoin at a later date.
That is why it is such a dangerous deal.
I won’t be supporting it.
Dear Julian Flood
If the imagination in your para 1 produced the garbage in your para 2, your dificulty is easily understood.
Tell us, what would satisfy you? And what are you actually DOING to get it?
Best wishes
Peter Marshall